Lent 2, Year C

Genesis 15:1–12, 17-18; Psalm 27; Philippians 3:17–4:1; Luke 13:31-35

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois, on Sunday, February 24, 2013.

“ON SCHEDULE AND IN CONTROL”

(Homily text:  Luke 13; 31 - 35)

Last Wednesday was the birth anniversary of my mother’s father.  Grandpa Pedersen (a Danish immigrant) left a host of cherished memories for me and my three younger sisters.

Among those memories is the fact that he had a wonderful sense of humor…..Many of his friends knew that he stayed up late nearly every night reading, and so he would often sleep in until very late the next morning.  Since he had a small farm to tend to, they wondered how he could manage such a schedule with cows to tend to.  His answer was two-fold, and demonstrates that wonderful humor:  He would say, “First of all, the bills don’t start until I get up,” and then he would add, “The cows are on my schedule.”

The matter of whose schedule is being followed figures prominently in today’s gospel reading, it seems to me….Jesus is told my some Pharisees that He’d better flee before King Herod catches up with Him, so that he can kill Him.

But Jesus’ response indicates that there is work still to do, and that that work will unfold in a methodical and timely fashion until it is done.  Here is the way Jesus puts that reality:  He says, “Tell that fox (Herod) ‘Behold, I cast our demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.  Nevertheless I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’”

If we unpack the Lord’s comment a bit, we can see that He is determined to do the work given Him to do, and that He will complete that work in as much time as is required.  But then we also see that He hints that a showdown awaits Him once He arrives in Jerusalem.

 To those who heard His remark, there must’ve been a great deal of wonderment as they pondered what He meant by saying that, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you.”

But we who hear the Lord’s remark through the reading and hearing of Holy Scripture know what that remark involves, for we know the events of Good Friday very well.  For it is in Jerusalem that Jesus will be killed.

The Lord is in control, in control of His work, in control of the schedule of that work.

But His arrival in Jerusalem, hinted at in His comment that, “You will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’’[1], signifies not only the completion of His work, and the completion of His course, but perhaps also the surrender of control of His life.

For His death on a cross on Good Friday is the ultimate symbol of the loss of everything, and most importantly, the loss of control. 

If we stop at Good Friday, we’d have to say that everything has been lost:  The Lord’s presence among us, His mighty deeds and glorious miracles, His magnificent teaching and acts of love among the most down-and-out of the society of His day.  He dies a horrible death, a death that was reserved for the most heinous criminals.

But we know that the reality of Good Friday isn’t the final reality.  The final reality is to be found on Easter Sunday morning.

Talk about being in control!  Talk about being on God’s schedule!

On Easter Sunday morning, God’s control over death and life is complete.  He has finished the course given Him, and has secured the victory over the ultimate and most fearful enemy, death itself.

The schedule of His resurrection, and His control over all things, is clearly seen in the light of Easter.

So perhaps we could say, as we look at the sweep of the events of Good Friday and Easter, that to be in control, the Lord surrendered control.  I think that is the reality behind the Lord’s comment that, “Whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it.  For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?”  (Luke 9: 24 – 25)[2]

Without the Lord’s passage through Good Friday, there could be no Easter resurrection.

That same reality applies to us.

We’d like to think that we are in control of our own schedules, of our own path through life.  After all, we are made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1: 26), and we are possessed of the gifts of reason, memory and skill.

We’d like to think that we can control the events of our lives, and that we can chart the course of our lives through our own abilities, those abilities of reason, memory and skill.

And to some extent, we can control the schedule and the events and the paths of our lives.

To some extent.

But the truth is that we cannot ultimately control the schedule, the events or the paths of our lives.  Unforeseen events and crises arise, accidents happen, events beyond our control crop up as we walk the path before us.

So the reality is that we cannot completely control everything.

In the physical reality of this world, there is no complete and total control. 

And what is true physically is also true, spiritually….we cannot control our spiritual wellbeing completely.

But we can surrender control of our spiritual health to the Lord.  Here, Jesus’ comment rings true:  If we would try to save ourselves, we will lose ourselves, but if we are willing to let loose of control of our lives and our spiritual wellbeing, we will find our truest and most complete identity, an identity grounded in God Himself.

For, no matter what comes our way, we can affirm with St. Paul that “Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  (Romans 8: 38 – 39)

There is a wonderful Collect in the Book of Common Prayer that affirms the reality of having to give up control in order to allow God to be in control.  It is the Collect for Fridays from the Office of Morning Prayer (Book of Common Prayer, 1979, page 56):

“Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified:  Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace;  through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord.  Amen.”

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[1]   From Psalm 118: 26, the cry that greeted Jesus as He entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (see Luke 19: 38).

[2]   This is a text we heard a few Sundays ago.

Lent 1, Year C

Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Psalm 91:1–2,9-16; Romans 10:8b-13; Luke 4:1-13

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, February 17, 2013.

“A PLACE TO CALL ‘HOME’,
A PLACE WHERE GOD DWELLS”

(Homily text:  Deuteronomy 26:1-11)

Does our Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy strike you as an odd choice to begin the season of Lent with?

After all, it has the word “rejoice” in it!

 Isn’t Lent supposed to be about examining our hearts and minds to find out those ways that we fall short of God’s holiness (what the Bible calls “sin”)?  Isn’t Lent about wearing a sorrowful expression, about giving something up, about self-denial?

Yes, Lent is about all those things, at least in part.

But Lent is about more than all that…Lent is also about God’s goodness, God’s mercy, and about God’s mighty acts by which He has claimed a people for His own possession.

After all, without God’s goodness, mercy and saving acts, none of us would be able to come into His presence at all.  It is only because God has already shown His generous nature that we are able to trust in His goodness and mercy, a goodness and mercy which allow us to confess our sins and shortcomings, being assured that, as we confess our wrongdoings and resolve – with God’s help – to amend our lives, He will forgive us and restore us to a close and abiding walk with Him.

 In short, what is at play here is the necessary connection between God’s holiness and God’s mercy.  We  cannot separate those two qualities of God.

As surely as ancient Israel had experienced God’s holiness when the Ten Commandments were given at Mt. Sinai, now Israel – in the worship that is described for us in today’s reading – was assured of God’s goodness and mercy.  This worship is an occasion for giving thanks.

That assurance began with a recitation of God’s mighty, saving acts.  (In our liturgical worship, this recitation has a technical name:  the anamnesis.  Coming from the Greek, the word literally means the “not forgetting”.  Put more plainly, it means the “remembering”.)

Here are the words as we have them in Deuteronomy:  “A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty and populous.”  Skipping down a few verses, we then read of God’s saving acts in the delivery of His people from Egypt, and of His providing of a land “flowing with milk and honey”.

So we have before us a pattern for worship….Yes, a liturgy.  We even have a part of the text of that liturgy:  “A wandering Aramean was my father….”

The offering that is prescribed (along with the rubrics which govern the actions that are a part of the worship) is a thank offering.  It is a grain offering, the proceeds of which were used to feed the hungry, and the destitute.

We often forget that there were many sorts of offerings that the Law of Moses required….Most often, we tend to think of  the offerings of animals on the altar of sacrifice, offerings which were meant to cover the sins and offenses of the person who offered them.

But the whole range of offerings, sin offerings, thank offerings and the like, were meant to keep God at the forefront of the people’s thoughts, attitudes and daily living.

For example, the animals which were acceptable for offerings had to be free of blemishes…such animals would have required special food, special attention, and care to keep them away from other, unacceptable animals.  A lot of work went into caring for an animal that was set aside for God.

 Likewise, in today’s text, we see that God requires the first fruits of the land.  This was to be the first of the harvest to be brought in.  (One commentator suggests that this offering was to be made in late summer.)

 (In time, Israel would forget God’s high standards….the Old Testament prophet Malachi warns against bringing blemished, second-rate animals for sacrifice, for example.)

 But let’s return to the matter of God’s saving acts, of the provision of a place to call “home”, a place where God had chosen to dwell among His holy people.

All of these three things are connected.

God’s express purpose in bringing His people out of Egypt was for the purpose of giving them a home, a land in which to live, a place to live with Him. 

Having a place to call “home” allows the security of having food to eat, and security from danger (in the form of invasion).  A land to call one’s own allows a permanent, visible home for God….in time, this would be called the temple in Jerusalem.  That holy place was the focal point of all of Israel’s religious energy and devotion.

 This holy land and these holy people, living in the presence of a holy God, all of these three things were meant to create a beacon of light to the surrounding world.  Isaiah puts in well when he says that God had given Israel to be a light to the nations.

We are separated by the passage of thousands of years from those ancient Israelites.  But even though the passage of time has changed many things for us, there are strong links between the relationship between God’s people in Old Testament times and our time today.  Identifying the connections is easy.  Here are the commonalities:

Giving thanks for God’s saving acts:  We Christians give thanks to God for the saving act of sending Jesus Christ to be the perfect offering for our sins.  Every Eucharistic prayer begins with the anamnesis, the “not-forgetting” of Jesus’ saving acts by His sinless life and His offering of Himself on the cross, in order to accomplish atonement for our sins.  The very word “eucharist” comes to us from the Greek, where it means “thanks”.

An offering is made to God:  The text before us today prescribes the nature of the offering, a basket of the first fruits of the land.  Today, in Christian liturgy and worship, the offering is now bread (grain) and wine.

A place to call “home”:  We Christians recognize that God’s dwelling place is in the heart, and in the mind.  There it is that Christ dwells, in the hearts of God’s faithful people.

One final comment is in order here…the Church is called to be a visible expression of the presence of God among the people in our community, and in the world.  As such, it is called to be a beacon of light, shining in an otherwise dark and unfriendly world.  Even the most visible aspect of the Church, the building, serves as a reminder to everyone of God’s abiding presence. 

In a very real sense, the Church, in its members and in its physical presence in the community, is an outpost of that heavenly land where God dwells.  It is a place where we recall God’s generous and merciful nature in the provision of His Son to be the saving victim for all who come to faith in Him.  It is a place where we can come offering ourselves in thanksgiving and in confession to the loving and merciful God who seeks to dwell within us and among us as God’s faithful people.  It is a place that God Himself has given us, for it is He who has brought us out of the bondage of sin into the perfect love of God.

Thanks be to God!

AMEN.

 

 

 

Ash Wednesday, Year C

Joel 2: 1 – 2, 12 – 17; Psalm 103: 8 – 14; II Corinthians 5: 20b – 6: 10; Matthew 6: 1 – 6, 16 – 21

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Wednesday, February 13, 2013

“MAINTENANCE OR REPAIR REQUIRED”

Many of you know that my wife drives a nice little old red car that used to belong to her mother.  Naturally, there’s great sentimental attachment to that vehicle, constantly reminding her of her mother.

This car – like many others today – has a number of warning lights to inform us of the car’s condition.  This one has two lights that are good illustrations of the sorts of things we might want to pay attention to in this holy season of Lent:  One is the “service required” light, and the other one is the “check engine light”.

The “service required” light tells the driver that, because of the time or the mileage accumulated, some preventive maintenance is required in order to keep the car running smoothly and reliably.

The “check engine” light is a warning light, telling us that something is amiss with one or more of the systems in the car.  Ignoring this light for any length of time increases the risk that the car will break down at some point in the future.

Applying this illustration to the business of Lent, we can see that, as we reflect on our own spiritual condition and walk with the Lord, that there might be some maintenance needed on our relationship, maintenance that will keep things running smoothly, maintenance that just might even improve our closeness to God.  This sort of maintenance is at the heart of the reason for Lent in the first place:  Time has accumulated since the last call for routine maintenance, and so it’s time to engage in some more.  Some concrete suggestions in this area might include:  Bible reading and study, daily worship using Morning Prayer and/or Evening Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer, reading a devotional book during Lent, or taking up some ministry for the benefit of others (food pantry,  homeless shelter, etc.).  Use your imagination, and ask the Lord for guidance.

But some matters go beyond routine maintenance…these are conditions that imperil our walk with the Lord, for they have the power – just like the illustration of the car we began with – to stop any forward movement with God.  These conditions are “show-stoppers”.  Some threats of this sort might include a serious and besetting sin, an addiction of some sort, or a habit that displays a poor Christian witness to others in the body of Christ and to the world.  Remedies might include:  Confession of the sin or the condition to the Lord, along with the resolve to – with the Lord’s help – forsake the sin or condition.  It might also involve the Sacrament of Reconciliation (the old name for this Sacrament was Confession), where the sin is confessed to a caring priest.

 As we set out on our Lenten journey, might we examine our hearts and minds to see what areas might benefit from some routine maintenance?  Might we also ask ourselves, honestly, if there are any “show-stoppers” in our walk with God that threaten to harm that relationship?

 May we, enabled by the Holy Spirit, see ourselves as God sees us, to the end that we will take the steps necessary to improve our relationship to the God who loves us, and to amend our lives, if in any way our walk is in peril.

AMEN.

Last Epiphany, Year C

Exodus 34: 29 - 35; Psalm 99; II Corinthians 3: 12 – 4:2; Luke 9: 28 - 43

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois, on Sunday, February 10, 2013.

“LIGHT FOR THE JOURNEY THROUGH DARKNESS”

(Homily texts:  Exodus 34: 29 – 35, II Corinthians 3: 12 – 4:2 and Luke 9: 28 - 43)

While at our clergy retreat earlier this week, I picked up (and bought) a book that caught my eye.  In this book, which was divided into 50 chapters of practical advice about meeting the challenges of everyday living, there was this quote:

“The headlights on my car shine 350 feet in front of me.  But that’s enough light to allow me to drive all the way to California.”

All three of our readings for this morning mention light.  They mention it prominently:

1. Exodus 34: 29 – 35:  Moses’ face shone has he came down from the mountain, where he had received the Ten Commandments.  The radiance of his face was so great that he put a veil over his face so that the Israelites could stand to look at him.  That radiance, of course, was a reflection of God’s light.
2.  II Corinthians 3: 12 – 4: 2:  St. Paul takes the incident referred to above and turns the image of the veil around to say that, for the Jews of his time, the Law that had been given to Moses had now become, over the centuries, a veil,  something that had blocked their ability to see God’s light, shining through the Law that God had given..[1]
3. Luke 9: 28 – 43:  Luke recounts the divine light that surrounded Jesus as He is transfigured before His disciples, Peter, James and John, on the mountain.

All of these related passages[2] have to do with God’s light.  There is a specific Hebrew word which refers to this light.  It is the word shekinah.

Here, in the transfiguring resplendence of Jesus, we see God’s divine light, God’s shekinah.  Standing with the Lord are Moses and Elijah.  Moses is the giver of the Law, while Elijah’s appearance[3] will herald the coming of the Messiah, the Christ, God’s Anointed One.[4]

 For the three disciples, Peter, James and John, who witnessed this event, Jesus’ changed and magnificent appearance must have been bewildering and frightening, all at the same time.

After all, what they were witnessing was nothing less than a glimpse at the glory Jesus had with His Father before coming to earth.  It was a glimpse into God’s glory and magnificence.  It was a glimpse into God’s eternal plan, for Moses, Elijah and the Lord talked about His coming departure, His death.

But talk of the Lord’s departure had already been in the air…eight days before, the Lord had told His disciples that He was going to suffer many things, that He would be killed, and that He would rise on the third day.  (See Luke 9: 22.)  And just to underscore what He had just said, the Lord added that, “If anyone would follow me, let him take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9: 23)

If we put ourselves into these disciples’ shoes, we can understand their fears and their bewilderment.  “What does this mean,” we might imagine they asked themselves, “that the Lord is going to suffer and be killed?”  “Why must this be so?” they might have wondered.  And, we might imagine that they could have added this:  “What is this talk about rising again?” 

So we can imagine their bewilderment as the events unfold on the top of that mountain….the radiance of the divine light, God’s shekinah, shining around the Lord as his clothing becomes dazzling white.

 Luke goes on to tell us that a cloud then descended upon all of them, and that the three disciples were afraid.  Then it is that they hear God the Father’s voice saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him.”

No wonder that Peter, James and John kept quiet about these things.  In due time, I think, they understood what had happened on that day on that mountain.  In due time, no doubt, they made sense of the Lord’s glorious appearance, for they saw that same appearance again after the Lord had risen from the dead on Easter Sunday morning.

“Ah,” they might have said to themselves, “now it all makes sense….the Lord was giving us light to make the dark journey to Jerusalem, to the events of Palm Sunday, of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday.”

Indeed, it seems to me that the Lord was given these three disciples just enough light to make the journey to Jerusalem, one day at a time, like the light of a car’s headlights that shine only 350 feet ahead, but which allow a trip across the continent, one step at a time.  But, of course, these three disciples could see God’s light and its ability to guide them only in retrospect, as they looked back on all these events.

 But we have a different perspective, for we are able through the pages of Holy Scripture to see the entire picture.  Our worship underscores the biblical drama as we allow it to unfold in our liturgy.

As the Church Year unfolds, we enact in our worship and in our liturgy the events of the Lord’s life, teaching, suffering, death, resurrection and ascension.  The Church Year revolves around all of these things, and is structured by them.

Specifically, on this, the last Sunday after the Epiphany, we are reminded of the Lord’s light, God’s shekinah, that lights up the path of Lent that lies ahead of us.

Liturgically, we are walking with the Lord toward Jerusalem, through the darkness and the starkness of Lent, toward Palm Sunday, Holy Week and Easter.

We stand poised, on the mountaintop of this, the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, ready to come down from the top of the mountain into the valley that is Lent.

We will need to remember that God’s shekinah was given to us on this glorious day, and that that divine light will make it possible to walk, one step at a time, through the darkness of Lent, always looking for the brilliance of the resurrected Lord on Easter Sunday morning.

Liturgically, God’s light shines most clearly on the altar, where we become one with the Lord in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.  Holy Communion, it is called, remembering that the word “communion” essentially means to “become one with”.  And so, we receive the Light of Christ in the holy bread and wine, uniting ourselves with Him, receiving His light, which become a lamp in our hearts and a light to shine on the footsteps that lie ahead.

For the Lord provides us just what He provided to those three disciples:   Enough light to make the entire journey, one day, one step at a time.

Thanks be to God!

AMEN.

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[1]   St. Paul’s argument is one of the most masterful and creative uses of the imagery involving light, a veil and the Law ever to come from his mind and pen.  It is worthy of a sermon topic in its own right.  We will explore that possibility sometime in the future.

[2]   The drafters of the lectionary cycle of readings have done an exceptionally fine job of choosing this set of readings for today, in my view.

[3]   The Jews of the first century, many of them at least, expected that Elijah would return to herald the coming of the Messiah.  This is based on an Old Testament passage found in Malachi 4: 5 – 6.

[4]   The word” Messiah” and the word “Christ” come from the Hebrew and the Greek, respectively, and they mean the same thing:  God’s Anointed One.

Epiphany 4, Year C

Jeremiah 1:4–10; Psalm 71:1–6; I Corinthians 13:1–13; Luke 4:21–30

A homily by Fr. Gene  Tucker; given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, February 3, 2013.

“LOVE:  THE SURE AND LASTING FOUNDATION”

(Homily text:  I Corinthians 13: 1 – 13)

Let’s continue our in-depth look at St. Paul’s first letter to the Church in Corinth, continuing a work we began with last Sunday…..

Recall with me that the last verse in chapter twelve says this:  “….but I will show you a still more excellent way.”[1]

Paul’s statement seems to suggest that he is about to show the Corinthian believers just what that “still more excellent way” is….it is the way of love.

And so begins Paul’s treatise on love.  It occupies all of chapter thirteen of his letter. 

Since I Corinthians 13 is often read at weddings, and because our contemporary society has some pretty clearly conceived notions about the meaning of the word love, it would be well for us to define the word as the Bible uses it, capturing the three basic meanings of it as we find it in Holy Scripture.  Using the Greek words for love,  we find three definitions:

Romantic love:  This is the love of a man and a woman.  The Greek word for this type of love is eros  (yes, the same word that has come into English as “erotic”).

Brotherly/sisterly love:   The love between siblings, or between friends, is this sort of love.  The Greek word phileo has come down to us in English in some limited ways….for example, the City of Philadelphia is the “City of Brotherly Love.”

Self-giving love:  The sort of love that loves and sacrifices for the sake of the one(s) who is/are loved is called agape in Greek. 

Of course, it is this last sort of love, this self-giving, self-emptying love, that Paul has in mind.  It is the word agape that Paul uses ten times in the course of his treatise (all of chapter thirteen).

Now, let’s turn to the text itself.

As we do so, we that Paul contrasts the things that are temporary/imperfect, with the thing that is permanent.  That enduring reality is love.

 A definite pattern emerges from the chapter.  Here is my analysis of it:

Gifts that are worthless without love as a foundation:  Paul begins by picking up on some of the most egregious problems that had manifested themselves within the Corinthian congregation….Two of those that he tackles head-on are:  The gift of speaking in tongues and the gift of prophecy.  To these two, he adds two other, praiseworthy traits in any believer:  The gift of faith and a generosity of spirit.

In each case, he identifies the trait or gift, then says that they have no foundation if they do not have love as their basis.  The phrases he uses to knock the props out from under the Corinthian believers are blunt, and to-the-point:  “I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal,”  “I am nothing,”  and “I gain nothing.”

 A basic definition of love:  Paul affirms that love is the basis for everything we as Christians do, and of every gift we exercise for the glory of the Lord and for the benefit of His Church.  Now, it is time to define love’s basis characteristics.  Here is Paul’s list:

Love is:   Patient and kind

 

                 Not jealous or boastful,

                 Not arrogant or rude

                 Does not insist on its own way

                 Is not irritable or resentful

                 Does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right

                 Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things

It is worth noting that, just as he had done in his opening statements, Paul is, again, specifically targeting some of the bad behavior of the Corinthian Christians:  Jealousy, boasting, arrogance, rudeness, insistence on their own way, irritable, resentful, rejoicing in the wrong.

Love’s enduring qualities, versus those that will pass away:  Here, Paul begins by saying that “love never ends,” and then appends to that statement a list of those things that will end.  Here is his list:

                        Prophecy

                        Tongues

                        Knowledge

It is worth noting that this list, like much of what Paul has said up until now, is specifically targeted toward some of those gifts and qualities that the Corinthian Church was most proud of:  Their ability to speak in tongues, first of all, but also their perceived gifts of prophecy and their knowledge of things relating to the faith.

But Paul reminds these early believers that all of these things will pass away.  Why?  The reason is given in the verses that follow….There, Paul states that there will come a time when we will see the Lord face-to-face, a time when there will be no need at all for an ability to speak in tongues, no need to be able to utter prophetic wisdom, nor to gain knowledge. For in the Lord’s presence, all will be revealed, all will be known.

A call for wisdom:  In verse eleven, Paul issues a call for wisdom….He puts his appeal this way:  “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child;  when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.”

Essentially, Paul seems to be asking the Corinthians to “grow up.”

His appeal seems to target – indirectly – some of the childish behavior of the Corinthian believers:  arrogance and boastful, boorish behavior, which was filled with party-spirit and pride.

The three theological virtues:  Paul closes his treatise by listing what have come to be known as the “Three Theological Virtues”:  Faith, Hope and Love.

All three of these essential virtues are indispensible ingredients in any successful Christian life. 

But God only shares one of the three with us:  He is love perfect love, the sort of love whose qualities Paul has listed earlier in the chapter.

God has no need for faith, nor for hope.  Being perfect and all-knowing, God has no need of these qualities.  But we do.  When the time comes for us to be in God’s presence, seeing Him for who He is, we will have no further need for faith, and no further need for faith.  We will know Him, and we will know Him fully, even – as Paul says – He has known us.

It is always important for us to ask ourselves, “How does this relate to my life in Christ today?”

As I reflect on that question, I think the important aspects of our answers will:

Take into account the secular world’s one-sided view of love:  In our society today, love is almost always romantic love.  This sort of love, which is the subject of much of our movies, television shows, popular music and advertisements, is often portrayed in a way that seeks to get something from this sort of love, rather than to seek the other person’s welfare and wellbeing, to give of ourselves for the sake of the loved one.  Succinctly put, our society’s notions of romantic love are very self-centered.  Often, our society encourages us to ask ourselves, “What’s in this (love relationship) for me?”

Christian witness to the wider world is at stake:  I believe that much of what St. Paul has to say to the Corinthian Christians was predicated on his conviction that, because of their awful, un-loving behavior toward each other, their Christian witness to the community in which they found themselves was compromised.

 In due time, as Christians became, more and more, a persecuted minority within the Roman Empire, pagans would notice in those difficult and trying times the enduring bonds of love that these early believers had for one another.  The pagan testimony that comes down to us from those early centuries of the Christian Church was this:  “See how those Christians love one another.”

The need for genuine, self-giving (agape) love is just as critical today as it was in Paul’s time.  Only when this sort of Christ-like love is evident in the things we say, the things we do, and the way we treat one another can our witness to the world be effective in winning others to Christ.

 May we, by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, be enabled to follow our Lord’s example of self-giving, self-emptying love, to His glory, for the good of the Church, and for the world’s benefit.

AMEN.

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[1]   The Greek word which is usually translated “a still more excellent way” is hyperbolen.  The professor who led the class I took last summer at Nashotah House seminary suggested that the literal meaning of this word, as it was often used in the first century, is a “mountain pass”.  If this is correct, then Paul might be suggesting to the Corinthians that he is about to show them the “high road”.